I bought a guitar this week!!! It's definitely not like the one I have at home, BUT it was definitely a good deal (about 30 dollars). I don't plan on bringing it home and it could double as a Christmas gift to someone here in Tehuacan. I've already been playing it tons and tons and am loving every minute of it! A couple of my girls also play (Christina and Sylvia) and so they had a turn on it as well. Sylvia is incredibly talented, and Christina has a good start but it hoping to get better (so she bought a guitar as well). I think I've already promised enough "private lessons" to keep me incredibly busy. I made the mistake of playing for my host family. I call it a mistake because as soon as I finished "Hallelujah" my host father told me that I have to play for their church and that he would talk to the pastor. I tried to object and tell him that I don't know any of their church songs but he wouldn't listen. I am less than enthusiastic to sing in front of a lot of people I don't know. I hope that at least I can sing in English and that people won't be able to tell that I'm not singing a church song.... or maybe I'll borrow one from our hymn book :)
Speaking of church, I went to my church for the first time on Sunday. The meetings start at 8:00am so I don't really have enough energy to stay awake AND translate inside my head. But, I did meet some of the elders that were assigned to my ward. I think that their names were Elder Vazquez (from Florida) and Elder Shipley (from California I believe). Elder Shipley was a greenie and had only been out in the mission field for a few days. It was nice to talk to them both IN ENGLISH. I feel like I've been missing that part of my life far too much.
On Wednesday night me and all of the teachers had a sleepover at my host family's house. We went out and bought tamales for dinner, talked a lot about our students, watched "Water for Elephants" (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend this movie), and went to sleep. We woke up early the next morning and got some shopping done downtown. It was an incredibly fun night and I plan on doing it again.
Teaching is going better as the registrations and new students have been going down so it isn't nearly as chaotic. We've finally figured out a schedule that works and I've been busy doing all sorts of things at the office. Now that I've been able to take a breath, I've been able to get to know all of the students and help my teachers more.
I know it's been a while since I've posted some pictures, so I decided to share some of the classrooms/teachers. Just a note, this is when we were doing "store" at the end of the day so most of the kids have already left- we definitely teach more than 3 or 4 in each class :)
This is Sylvia's class
Tracy's Elementary 1 class
And last but not least, this is my self proclaimed "office" (yes, it's in the middle of a kitchen, which makes it even better). It is completely overflowing with books, papers, and other things that still remain to be cleaned up and organized. BUT, I really enjoy having my own little space.
Spanish classes started this week. I was incredibly grateful to realize that I know a lot more than I thought! I think at this point, I mostly need to build my vocabulary *signal the flash cards*. I'll be working hard to learn as many new Spanish words as possible. Wish me luck.
Last night after school it was raining SOOO hard! I think that Tehuacan has a less than adequate draining system so whenever it rains, it just stays in the streets. I would have walked home if I didn't have my laptop in my backpack and my new TOMS on my feet. I felt terrible that my host mom had to drive through rivers to get to us. At some points, the water was at least 2 feet deep! River indeed! But, we made it home safely and I have made a mental note to buy a raft just in case I have to walk home in the future.
I hope that that didn't bore too many of you- I could go through my new labeling system... but I won't. I hope everyone is doing well :)
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